I spent the weekend shoveling. Which is underfoot, so that sort of counts?

It’s strange being housebound by yourself. The last time this happened I was 21 years old, it was 1977, and even though I had a roommate, she was never there. Eventually in that epic winter storm (60 inches of snow over the course of about a week, air temps lower than -20 (that’s Fahrenheit folks), I had to dig my way out and spent the week squatting in a university art studio.

I got to the end of the internet. I watched Netflix. I watched the season premier of Downton Abbey, reminding myself of the fact that I stopped watching it because of the telegraphed plot and sluggish writing and direction, despite the absurd number of simultaneous storylines. (Downton hate mail in 3…2…1…)

I felt like I was living inside the story, which I know by heart, because I have read it aloud to someone every year for decades, and when I didn’t have someone to read it to, I read it aloud to myself.

I left the house dark except for the last of the holiday lights, draped with greenery in the bow window. Snow like this muffles the sound of the city, with just the occasional rattle of the wind chimes next door– they rattle instead of ringing because they are filled with snow.

I sat because I was sad; it’s no fun being housebound alone when you’re used to having someone with you, to share the thoughts, and the boredom and the rugelach. But after a few minutes, the view becomes hypnotic and your mind empties. It’s not so much that you’re not sad, or not thinking, but that you’re just a vessel, filling up like the garden with the beautiful, blowing, soft and drifting snow.

This is the second in our repostings of Jen’s wonderful posts on monthly planning. Originally posted in 2011, here’s what to do in the traditional dead of winter.

February can be one of the last chances to get indoor projects completed before the spring thaw arrives. Gardeners are getting excited and it won’t be long before the first of this year’s farm babies are here! Spring is really just around the corner, so start wrapping things up inside and get ready to head back outdoors.

Freshen your kitchen sinks by pouring a mixture of 3 cups hot water and 1/4 cup vinegar (or the juice of one lemon) down each drain.

Keep an eye out for cracks in your drywall caused by settling during thaws and freezes. There are expandable putties and spackles available for problem areas. While you’re at it, you may want to mark outdoor masonry to be repaired. Plan to complete this project after the last hard freeze and once your biggest worries of the house settling are past.

If you don’t have a cold frame or greenhouse, set up an area to start seeds for your garden. Few seeds need light to germinate (be sure to read the directions) so you may be able to get by without any lights other than a window for the first few weeks. (Check out chiotsrun seedstarting 101 guide).

Research and prepare for any animal purchases for the year.

Keep a tray of water and spray bottle near indoor plants to adjust humidity levels, especially if you have central air. Running the heater can dry them out quickly and cover leaves with dust.

If you live in a climate with mild winters, this month may be a good time to dig new beds. You may also want to repair or build new composting bins to be prepared for this year’s cleanup.

Southerners could get away with planting bare root trees on warm days.

Keep driveways and walks free of snow and ice. Have shovels, plows, and salt/brine accessible and stocked.

Watch gutters and roofs for ice dams.

XAN EDIT: if you’re in a short-season zone (5 and up) start long season seeds like onions and leeks indoors

If you didn’t get to it during fall, now would be a great time to oil and sharpen garden tools.

Animal Husbandry

Be prepared for early birthing. Have any equipment you’ll need ready and accessible.

Nights are still very cold in most parts of the country. Keep your critters warm with fresh hay, heat lamps, or blankets, but be sure to avoid fire hazards.

If you’ve been leaving a light on for your chickens you can begin weaning them off of it. The sun is setting noticeably later and your gals should begin laying more regularly soon.

You can also find Jennifer in archive at Unearthing This Life where she used to blog (or as she called it “blarg”) a bit about good food, home schooling, raising chickens, and being a suburban Yankee transplant in a rural southern town. She’s not writing right now, but her wonderful posts are well worth scrolling through.

Like this:

In my next life, when I get to be Barbara Kingsolver, pizza night will be family togetherness night, when we make pizza from scratch using our own hand-milled flour and homemade sausage (from our own pigs) and then put on plays that our 9 year old wrote herself, using the great old clothes we found in Grandpa’s trunk in the attic. Probably homemade sarsparilla too, cuz, y’know pizza night is fun night!

Or maybe not.

For me pizza night is I do not have to lift a finger night. I don’t understand easy (fun?) food night that involves waiting for dough to rise. This does not meet my criteria for “easy meal.” On pizza night around here, I won’t even make the phone call. Pizza night is Mom’s Night Off. Someone else make the call, pull out the credit card and answer the door cuz mom’s watchin’ old “Road” movies on Netflix and nothin’ gonna pry her off that couch.

Incredibly, since I’m a pretty courageous cook, I had never made pizza from scratch. Until this week. I had a jar of tomato/eggplant sauce that I made for some noodles, and just decided, what the hell. Let’s try pizza. I had some mozzarella, and a nice big portobello, and that sauce.

So, scary baking stuff, first place I look is Martha. Forgetting that Martha only cooks for 40. Her pizza dough recipe yielded “eight 12 inch or fourteen 10 inch pizzas.” So, maybe not. Found a simple one on SimplyRecipes.com. They’re a content mill, but have pretty good basic recipes. Except it gave you the ingredients, instructions, descriptions, and then said “bake according to recipe instructions.” Um, I thought this WAS the recipe.

Back to the internets! SimplyRecipes did in fact have a decent complete recipe, too, which I then forgot to read, and just, as usual, made it up.

Bit of an eyeroll over the “prep time 2 hours 30 minutes.” Yup– that’s a great fun night right there.

Made two lovely 10″ pizzas. (Forgot to take a picture, so you’ll have to take my word for it.) Barbara Kingsolver would be proud.

Last week we had had a chance to see what the WEST cooked up for the Dark Days Challenge. This week, the final week for the Dark Days Challenge, we get to see what the EAST brought to the table. Breakfast…

Annie (MD) from AnnieRie Unplugged is turning into her father, but she’s blaming it on Mark Bitman (you’re going to have to read her post) She made a local version of scrapple for her breakfast challenge. Using cornmeal, local sausage and fresh sage from her garden her scrapple took shape. She made it the day/night before and then cut it into slices and fried it along with her local eggs the next morning. She has some advice about the recipe, so head over to her blog to read more and see her local resources.

Annie (MD) from AnnieRie Unplugged has also put together a post summarizing her Dark Days Challenge experience. It is really fun to read about what she learned and about the new resources she found in their area. She also touched on her highlights throughout the challenge and about learning to work with some vegetables in a different way and being more creative. Hear over to her post to read more! It is worth your time.

Victoria (MD) from The Soffritto has spring fever and decided to bring as many fresh herbs into her Breakfast Challenge as she could! She snipped the dill, chervil, and chives, and her husband prepped and cooked the beautiful herbed omelets. It wasn’t complete without the toast with homemade tomato and basil jam. Victoria said it tastes like spring. Stop by her blog to read more and see her local ingredients. She also talks about her experience throughout the DDC and how it has changed their approach to eating and cooking with local foods

Susan (VA) from Backyard Grocery made some fantastic baked eggs. But not just any baked eggs, she made cups out of bacon and filled them with sautéed radish greens and mushrooms and then topped them with eggs and baked! Her baked eggs look wonderful; love that little twist with the bacon cup. Susan also talks a bit about how the DDC affected her. Going in, thinking this would be a hard challenge and coming out realizing that she is fortunate to live in an area that produces a variety of whole foods – year round. She has learned a lot about what grows seasonally in VA. Visit her blog to read more!

Rebecca (VA) from Eating Floyd is cooking breakfast Appalachian Mountina-style and biscuits are a must! To go along with the biscuits she made a milk gravy loaded with local flavors. She used wild garlic paste, serrano peppers from the garden last year and a bit of bacon fat. On top of her biscuits she put some salty country ham and poached eggs, topping it all off with the flavorful gravy. Stop by her blog to read about it all and see her local resources.

Even though Liz (VA) from Family Foodie Survival Guide cooked up a nice breakfast last week she still cooked up breakfast for this weeks challenge. She had some blueberries in the freezer and used those to create a luscious blueberry pudding cake. She adapted the recipe to use more local ingredients – she used local honey and flour. The beautiful breakfast was served with some local bacon and apple cider. Head over to her blog to read more.

Jessica (SC) from Eat.Drink.Nourish. is not much of a breakfast person, so this “breakfast” was more of a brunch that really turned into dinner. She is excited her local spring CSA is starting up again and many small farm stands are starting to open up in her area. She made roasted egg stuffed tomatoes garnished with fresh dill, spring onions and served with strawberry, pecan and blue cheese salad. That sounds good from Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner to me! Head over to her blog and read more about her meal and local resources.

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Eat Local 365 made a fabulous looking Dark Days breakfast for the challenge, who doesn’t love poached eggs over greens?

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As the Dark Days Challenge comes to a close, it is incredible to look back to the beginning in November and think about all the “dark days” ahead of us all. To think about the nourishing winter foods that store well and get us through the winters. Many participants had access to year-round farmers markets; buying seasonal vegetables that were grown in their area. Other participants relied on what they produced in their gardens and canned and froze to use throughout the winter. Other participants had beautiful winter gardens of their own.

Did you cook a local breakfast this week? Tell us about it and share a link.

This week the Dark Days Challenge participants to a Breakfast Challenge. It is said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Let’s see what the WEST is making for breakfast this week. Join us next week to see what the EAST participants brings to the table for the Breakfast Challenge!

Julie and Eric (CO) from d.i.wine and dine prefer savory breakfast treats, but decided to go the sweet route for this weeks breakfast challenge meal. They made a beet and carrot cake (heavy on the local beets) and used egg replacer and soy yogurt to make the recipe vegan. The recipe went together well using 100% local whole wheat flour too. Stop by their blog to read more about the breakfast challenge cake and see the recipe.

Teresa (CA) from Not from a Box made up two breakfast options for this weeks challenge. She prefers a savory breakfast over a sweet one any day. First up is a “wallet egg.” What the heck is a “wallet egg?” Well, it looks wonderful, sounds wonderful and is easy to make. I won’t give away all the secrets, but basically take eggs, rice and some green onions….now head over to her blog to read more.

For Teresa’s second breakfast option she has made mushrooms on toast. I am a big fan of things “on toast” so this one is right up my alley. She starts by sauteing up some local shitake, oyster and cremini mushrooms (in local olive oil). You can use a splash of local beer or wine if you have it. Sprinkle in some fresh chopped parsley – don’t forget the toast. Stop by her blog to read about her local resources and more.

wow! The breakfast challenge for the PacNW was tackled by only one: Methylgrace. Frankly, I (the recapper) have been remiss in reminding my blogging neighbors about our challenges, and have been experiencing some major challenges of my own – including being kicked out of WordPress with no explanation or chance to query or appeal to the ‘staff.’ Methylgrace captures so much of what myself and several other bloggers have been feeling during this challenge in her breakfast post. This post was just so great. I wish everyone would go and read it. Right now! I can’t really blurblet it, as it deserves complete reading.

So please head over to her blog, drool over her breakfast crepes and share with her and with us your feelings on choosing foods in your grocery store, providing meals and money for your family, grappling life as a homesteader, housewife or working mom, and help us answer the questions we’ve been grappling during this challenge.

We got a treat and and a breakfast from the errant MNLocavore, and Woohoo got turned around by the calendar, partly because we’re all completely thrown by this strange warm weather, and partly because she was trying to time a St. Patrick’s Day meal with the Challenge. And it’s a good one–a traditional Irish Colcannon, and a homemade, local Shamrock Shake. And I totally don’t see why you couldn’t have that for breakfast. MN Locavore made a shortbread with strawberries (which also sounds like breakfast to me), and wraps up the Challenge with breakfast–whole grain pancakes served as a breakfast sandwich with eggs and sausage. She also includes a wonderful wrap-up list of all her challenge posts.

Real Food Challenge

This year we celebrated our Second Annual Real Food Challenge. Challenging ourselves and our readers to eat fewer processed foods and focus on eating Real Food for the entire month of March.

While the month of March is now over, we still plan to continue the Real Food Challenge by keeping in touch with our readers every few weeks. We want to support our community with advice, recipes, and even giveaways when possible so that all of us can live and eat healthier.

Whether you eat mostly fast food or already make just about everything at home, there's something for everyone in this challenge. We can all make a change whether small or large.

Join the challenge, check back often and give us your feedback - we're excited to hear how you're all doing in your quest to Eat REAL Food!